The Lens: Timber Installation Frames Kizhi's Historic Churches

Design Wood Home Studio has created 'The Lens', a timber art object installed on Kizhi Island in Russia's Republic of Karelia. The installation, positioned at the island's northernmost tip, offers a unique north-to-south perspective of the Kizhi Pogost, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990. The Kizhi Pogost is renowned for its 18th-century ensemble of two multi-domed wooden churches—the 22-domed Church of the Transfiguration (1714), rising 37 meters and built without nails, and the nine-domed Church of the Intercession—along with an octagonal wooden bell tower. The Lens frames these structures, visually aligning their stepped cupolas into a singular silhouette, and also highlights vernacular monuments like a historic windmill and the Chapel of the Archangel Michael. The object's design echoes the traditional wooden lemekh shingles of the Russian North, scaled to the entire volume as rhythmic modular slats, creating a play of light and shadow. Its orientation was verified by the shadow falling precisely toward the Pogost at noon. The project was led by architect Evgeny Makarenko, with a design team including Angelika Manzhiley, Alexey Ushakov, and Natalia Abarinova, and implementation by Makarenko, Mikhail Shatokhin, and Feodor Dobysh. The installation was submitted to designboom via its DIY submissions feature and edited by Christina Vergopoulou.